


left and north of where we met

by lesbianjackrackham



Series: Many trains and many miles [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Holding Hands, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianjackrackham/pseuds/lesbianjackrackham
Summary: After too much fucking time cooped up on a spaceship, he deserves go for a run through some judgmental corn.





	left and north of where we met

He doesn’t even know what state they’re in. Which means, when he storms out of the house and gets a few miles down the road, he’s surprised to run into a fucking corn field.

Somewhere in the Midwest, then.

The Midwest is the fucking worst. They call them flyover states for a reason, and Jacobi always hated the long drives up and through the American midlands, domestic missions by road for no reason other than the romantic notion of them.

Kepler was from the Midwest—Chicago, so it barely counts—but he defended the corn states all the same, casseroles and dairy farms and billboards screaming about God at every mile marker.

Jacobi’s from the Midwest too, but it always seemed like that was an accident, some esoteric mistake from up high, sticking him in a too cold too backwards thinking, backwater town. He learned to drink in the Midwest, and he learned to fight in the Midwest, and then he moved to cities full of people who didn’t grow up there, all of them escaping somewhere else, and letting himself get lost amongst them.

There is nothing romantic about a homecoming, no matter how many Lifetime Original movies insist that they are. And since they’ve been back on Earth, he’s watched a surprising number.

Now it’s past midnight and Jacobi’s in a cornfield, idly weaving his way through the stalks in a pattern he hopes someone mistakes for aliens. If he knew there would be corn he might have planned this out with Lovelace, get her to map the field for authenticity, and maybe find a way to walk by in the morning, sharing the secret. But tonight it’s just him. And the corn.

Corn smells. It’s musty and it coats his nostrils. His eyes water from the irritation, and he wipes his nose with his sleeve before remembering he’s wearing Doug’s sweatshirt.

He has no idea where the fuck he is. After ten minutes of angrily stomping around the cornfield, he’s trapped in a maze of his own stupid creation, following winding paths that lead to more corn, and the more he retraces his path over broken stalks and cobs the worse he feels about it. That’s food he’s wasted. Some farmer, in their straw hat, is going to wake up and find their corn trampled to death and the perpetrator asleep in the wreckage because he was too stupid to find his way out.

“This is dumb,” he tells the corn. The corn doesn’t say anything, just whispers gently in the wind.

Pryce has a garden now, which, he can honestly say, is the weirdest thing he’s seen in the past year. She doesn’t grow corn though, just peas and peppers and tomatoes. And everyone in the house (minus Hera) eats the vegetables like that’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Like tonight, when they had a salad supplemented with the groceries that get dropped off every week, with anything else they might need, because they’re not allowed to leave the property or know what fucking state they’re living in. And then after dinner they sat on the couch and watched a movie and Doug held his hand and honestly, what does that even mean? Like, what the fuck was that all about?

And like, yeah, they’re— whatever. But they haven’t even. And it’s not like they.

“Shut up,” he tells the corn.

So midway through the movie he got up and instead of going to the bathroom he sprinted out the front door. What’s so wrong with that? After too much fucking time cooped up on a spaceship, he deserves go for a run through some judgmental corn.

The corn says, “Hey,” and then, “Dude!” And for a second Jacobi's pretty sure he's going to get murdered by some talking vegetables, because his life is that weird, but then he sees Doug push his way up the path, tripping over the bent stalks until he’s standing just a foot away.

“Hey,” says Jacobi.

“Hey,” Doug says again. “Why are you in the corn?” Jacobi shrugs, and then remembers it’s probably too dark to see.

“Eh,” he says.

“You just kinda took off. Is there. Are you okay?”

That’s a great fucking question, and it would be helpful to know what definition of okay they’re working with, defining the variables, as Alana used to say. He says, “sure” and “yeah” and “okay” all at once and it comes out as a garbled squeak, trapped in the back of his throat. “Yeah,” he says again, and this time it sounds like a word.

“Okay. Well. Do you want to go back to the house?”

“Sure.”

“Or we could… stay here with the corn?” Jacobi doesn’t say anything. He tries to read Doug’s face, but it really is too dark to see anything. He can guess, though—some kind of mix of confusion and concern, a look that he’d want to punch off of anyone else, but on Doug it’s actually kind of endearing.

“Is everyone else…”

“Nah,” says Doug. “I saw you take off and followed you. I think they think we’re upstairs.”

“Gross.”

“Dude.” Jacobi smacks a plant just enough for it to bend backwards, and then snap back at him.

“You know how to get out of here?”

“...Do you not know how to get out of here?” Jacobi shrugs and doesn’t add any noise of agreement. “Yeah,” says Doug. “Follow me.”

He holds out his hand and Jacobi takes it. He lets Doug lead him back to the house.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to tag this with corn to be funny but I don't want to associate it with all of the other things tagged with corn. don't look. it's exactly what you think.
> 
> @lesbianjackrackham on tumblr


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